RxAxLxF

Even if 2024 beat the S*** out of us, 2025 we gonna beat back!
Happy 2025 from RxAxLxF

This is the time that I realize that this image is on my timeline for 7 years already.
Welcome back, Donnie! I trust the world won't be the same anymore in 4 years from now! 🥳

After my ongoing documentary project 'Blackest of Metal' about the Kenyan Metal & Punk scene was nominated
out of 22.000 projects for this years global Music Photo Awards (MPA), it's now showcased in London's Royal Albert Hall (RAH).

As the Albert Hall has the title 'Royal' for supplying to the British crown, and I supply my art to the RAH, makes that title pass on to me as well, isn't it? And not just on to me, but on to all people in my photos. So that makes me now a Royal Punk & Metal Photographer of the Royal Kenyan Punk & Metal underground!
I wonder if King Charly listens to Punk and Metal? What would he say about some songs about British atrocities in Kenya (Dedan Kimathi lays still in a British mass grave)? Well, maybe in his heart he would like to spend his nights in Kenyan moshpits, who knows, who knows.

For me, having now the title 'Royal' is a full circle. I remember those days as a young punk on the streets, after being kicked out of that catholic abbey school for speaking out (yes, I wanted to become a catholic priest). In the 'open-minded' Netherlands, there was always somebody waiting to beat the sh*t out of you for being different. The police was usually eager to join the beatings. Given up by almost everybody, it was the DIY attitude of the underground punk & squatting subcultures that made me survive. I started to put my traumas in my art, already in those days many saw me as 'controversial'.
Decades later, I wished there would have been people to document these days. There hardly were. We were too busy to survive. Maybe I am searching for my own lost photos with this project. I added one of the few remaining photos of me, can you find it?

And don't forget to check out & follow the bands covered in this series of my MPA nomination. My nomination as photographer is also their nomination as musicians and everybody else involved: (and aluta continua, more to come)


Autometal @ autometal_ke
Chovu
Crystal Axis
Dead Skin Remedy
Irony Destroyed
Last Years Tragedy
No Tree Forest

MPA

As 2023 excelled in stinky matters,
RxAxLxF wishes for all of us a better smelling 2024!
Happy New Year!!! 🚀